Monday, 30 March 2015

Most characters have
a profession—doctor, cop, assistant in a cupcake store—and in the course of
doing their job they will slip into work mode. They will talk and act in the
way you expect someone in that position to talk and act. The problem is that
this can make them come across as stereotypical.

This is
especially true for secondary characters who might not appear often other than
to perform a job related task, but it can also be true for main characters
where every time they have to do their job they start acting in a very specific
manner—a politician uses a lot of meaningless double-speak, a doctor uses a lot
of medical jargon, a cop becomes focused on factual questions and answers.

This makes it
clear what they do for a living but little else.

What a character
says and how they say it not only tells the reader what kind of a person they’re
reading about, but also helps to set mood and tone for a scene. There’s a lot
you can do through dialogue beyond asking and answering questions and imparting
information.

Monday, 23 March 2015

Making sure
readers actually care what happens to your main character is integral to any
story. You can’t just take it for granted that just because your story has
stuff happen to a guy that the reader will automatically be interested.

If your story
happens to be about a noble main character who has exciting adventures this is
less of a worry since this is the basic story archetype from fairy tales and
myths, but not all stories follow this template.

While the simplest way
to endear your MC to the reader is to demonstrate their general decency, what’s
sometimes referred to as a pat the dog or save the cat moment—the MC goes out
of their way to be helpful to some innocent in trouble and their good guy
credentials are confirmed—not all main characters are straight out of a
Disney family movie.

Fortunately
there are a number of other ways to boost your hero’s general appeal.

Monday, 16 March 2015

The good thing
about clichés is that they impart information quickly and reliably. If someone
says it’s raining cats and dogs, you know exactly what they mean.

The bad thing
about clichés is that they get overused which leads to them feeling unoriginal
and lazy. When you know what’s someone’s saying before they’ve even finished
saying it you stop paying attention. And a reader who isn’t paying attention is
not what a writer wants.

Weeding out
familiar phrases isn’t too difficult. Getting rid of overused scenes and
premises is not so easy.

Certain types of
scenes occur so often because readers want them—in some cases even expect them.
They want the guy and the gal to end up together; they want the evil plot to be
foiled. And different genres have tropes that readers enjoy seeing again and
again. But while
commercially there may be an acceptance of the same old story, artistically it
can feel less satisfactory for writers and more discerning readers.

So how do
you write scenes that readers are eagerly anticipating without simply producing
an imitation of every other book already out there?

Monday, 9 March 2015

Small talk is
boring. Characters who waffle on about the weather and the dream they had last
night and their favourite toy when they were a kid don’t hold a reader’s
attention for very long.

At the same
time, characters who enter a scene, get what they want, and leave can make the
story feel rushed and sterile.

There are, of course,
plenty of books that use the more rushed approach and it can work very well. It
makes it much easier to keep the reader hooked and turning pages. Many
bestsellers use this approach, although they don’t win many literary awards.

But we’ve all
read books that had long passages of seemingly random observations and
conversations that not only didn’t read as boring, but actually added to the
story. You felt a stronger connection to the character because of the glimpse
into their personality. So how did they manage it when your attempts feel like
meandering asides and unnecessary tangents?

Monday, 2 March 2015

No new post this week as I've been struck down by a mystery illness (or possibly just a cold). In the meantime here's one from the archives.Story is about character. There’s
what happens to the character, and there’s what the character does (not
necessarily in that order).

Of these two key elements, what
the character DOES is far more important than what is DONE TO the character.

Readers want to engage with a
character who makes decisions and choices and takes action.

If it’s all about what happens TO
the character, then chances are it’s going to turn out to be a boring story.